Bush calls for greater enforcement against 'anchor babies'

Jeb Bush doesn’t want birthright citizenship to go away, but he is calling for stronger enforcement for people who abuse it.

“If there’s abuse, if people are bringing — pregnant women are coming in to have babies simply because they can do it, then there ought to be greater enforcement,” Bush said on Bill Bennett’s conservative radio show, “Morning in America” Wednesday. “That’s [the] legitimate side of this. Better enforcement so that you don’t have these, you know, ‘anchor babies’, as they’re described, coming into the country.”

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“Anchor babies” is a derogatory term used to describe children who are born in the United States to undocumented parents.

Bush has been a supporter of the 14th Amendment, which allows for children born in the United States to become citizens, regardless of their parents’ legal status. He said this week that the proposals in the immigration plan released by Donald Trump — which called for an end to birthright citizenship — “aren’t practical.”

“This is a right of the 14th Amendment. I just don’t think it’s legitimate to say that we’re going to change our Constitution and that’s going to solve our problem,” Bush said.

On Fox News’ Bill O’Reilly show Tuesday, Trump said that babies born in the U.S. to undocumented immigrant parents are not American citizens, despite the 14th Amendment, and that many good lawyers agree with him.

But Trump said he didn’t want to amend the Constitution — rather, he suggested it should be interpreted differently.

“It’s a long process, and I think it would take too long. I’d much rather find out whether or not anchor babies are citizens because a lot of people don’t think they are,” he said.

Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton criticized Bush’s use of the term “anchor baby” on Wednesday: